Same-day delivery will be the norm by 2023, says report.

A survey by has revealed that people in the fulfilment and logistics business, specifically involved with retail believe that same-day delivery will be the norm by 2023.

The survey asked 2,700 professionals working in the transportation, logistics, retail and manufacturing industries in 16 countries, including the UK, from across the North and South America, Europe and Australasia for their views on the future of ecommerce deliveries. The Future of Fulfilment Vision Study was carried out by Zebra Technologies with research partner Qualtrics.

78% of the logistics companies queried expect to provide same-day delivery by 2023 and 40% say they can see delivery taking place within two hours by 2028. Also by 2028, 87% expect to be using crowdsourced delivery or a network of drivers that choose to take on their order. The gig economy is only going to expand.

For online merchants, the findings raise two significant questions. The first regards carriers. Who will be providing this service for marketplace sellers? Some couriers in metropolitan areas are able to provide same-day already (Shutl springs to mind) but as it stands it’s not that frequently offered and where it is, it’s expensive. And secondly, are shoppers really in such a rush most of the time that they won’t wait overnight if same-day delivery represents a significant extra shipping expense.

Indeed, it’s by no means clear whether SMEs will be able to plug into these advanced, innovative networks or whether they will remain the preserve of bigger retailers or those utilising third-party fulfilment services rather than despatching the goods themselves.

And don’t forget too, that there are rural and remote areas, not just in the UK, where same-day delivery is quite simply never going to be practically possible until the advent of the matter transporter. Even drones can’t get everywhere.

There is no doubt that same-day delivery is going to be increasingly more commonplace, available and sought after but as to whether it will become the norm in just five short years does strike us as remarkably unlikely.